i'll be back at the top of the hour with more live news. cnn's christine romans with a special edition of "your bottom line," educating. >> our system is broken. and it feels impossible to fix. but we can't wait. that's a line from the critical acclaimed education documentary "waiting for superman" and we couldn't agree more. enough with the politics, it's time with solutions, it's time to fix our schools. sarah brown westing is the national teacher of the year. what do you think is the number one thing that works in the classroom to make it successful? >> i think the number one thing

that works in the classroom is that relationship between the teacher and the student. to make sure that the teacher is empowered to make the kinds of instructional decisions he or she needs to make every day, to meet that student right where he or she is. >> that goes to the core of everything we've been talking about now with budget cuts and with all this hand wringing about the future of that relationship, sarah, and the future of education in this country. steve perry is cnn's education contributor. steve in new york, the bloomberg administration proposed a new plan for failing nyc schools. they want to fire principals and the teachers, make them reapply for their jobs and then a committee of parents, teachers and administrators would choose the new staff. could that work? >> it's the absolute only way in which it will work. you can't expect somebody to get a new school out of the same school when you have the same students, you have the same teachers, same principal, same lunch ladies and security officers. you can't expect hanging a new theme on the outside of the building to change the building. >> bill bennett is a cnn political contributor. you know, bill, i want to talk about something about class size.

education secretary arne duncan said he would prefer to put his own school age children in a classroom with 28 students led by a fantastic teacher rather than one with 23 kids and a mediocre teacher. does teacher quality trump class size? >> absolutely. absolutely. it does. they tried this in california, reduced class size, so small, they had to hire a bunch of new teachers, hired marginal teachers and the result was failure. let's look at the positive side. i think we can put some of this together, what sarah and steve is saying. great teaching in the classroom, give teachers autonomy the way they want to teach, but hold them accountable for results. great teaching, reward it. great content, encourage it. not stretching our students as much as we should, particularly in math and science in the early grades. great delivery assistance. take advantage of the new technology, christine, digital education, web-based instruction, embedded video. these things can be harnessed by a good teacher, i bet sarah

does, for maximum effect for our students. >> you say you would rather have a great teacher in front of a a decent class, small class. you don't want to trade off there. what about longer days, longer years? this is something that a lot of people talk about, increasing the length of the school day and the school year? what do you think about some of those -- those are really common things people say to improve our kids' education? what do you think, sarah? >> to some degree i think that's the wrong question to ask. because we can lengthen our school day, lengthen our school year, but if we do the same kinds of things within that time we're doing right now, i don't think it matters. i think the question we have to ask is, how are we going to focus on what kids are learning? how are we going to make sure we are treating our teachers as learners first? so that they can also be empowered to do those exact things that bill talked about, so that we can have collective responsibility for the education and learning of everyone who walks in the school environment. >> let's listen to the president, he was in boston with education secretary arne duncan, listen.

>> today, as many as a quarter of american students are not finishing high school. a quarter. the quality of our math and science education, lags behind many other nations. and america has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree. >> okay. bill, you've run the education department before. we know there's a bureaucracy, schools are different across the country with different challenges and solutions. seems like everybody wants to go to the same place. how do we get there, bill? >> well, i think that the conversation that you've had now three weeks running is a good start. the conversation that movie "waiting for superman" has stimulated. the recognition people like sarah, we need more of that. there's very little recognition of ek lens in our system and almost no reward of excellence in our system. again i come back to the three things i said. recognize great teaching, raise the level of content, and use

the new technology, the delivery systems in a productive way. we can do this. as steve said, there are productive schools in america. this is not arcane, it's not so mysterious we can't penetrate it. let's do what the successful schools do. even successful schools and environments and neighborhoods where the odds are against them. they all do the same things. the told story, all happy families alike, all unhappy families are different in different ways. look at the happy families. they pretty much do the same thing and those three areas, teaching, emphasis on content, use of it technology to personalize instruction. >> i'm going to take you up there, bill is talking about what the successful districts are doing. what are the things that are working? what is working? >> when you look at the most elite private schools and you look at the most successful urban schools, they are literally exactly the same. they're designed for the same purpose. they begin with high expectations. they're supported by a structure in which the teachers do have the autonomy to teach what it is

they know how to do but held accountable, on annual contracts. they must perform. and then you go down from there. they -- the students have a relationship with the faculty through an advisory relationship. meaning they have someone who's monitoring their daily progress and finally, they finish with a deep respect for the families that they work with, that the parents are not the enemy. they're, in fact, seen as very reasonable members of the education community. >> great. you guys, a great discussion again. we're going to talk later in the program about parents as partners with teachers and we've heard a lot you guys, about how we've been talking a lot about fixing education, but a lot of you out there at home are saying, parents need to do more. thank you so much. sarah, bill and steve. relax, america, relax. chinese math whizzes and india engineers are not stealing your kids' future, that's what my next guest thinks. with a parmesan lobster bake, our decadent lobster lover's dream and eleven more choices. right now at red lobster.

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use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. ♪ my benjamin, he helped me with the countdown. "ben, how many days has it been?" "5 days, mom. 10 days, mom." i think after 30 days he got tired of counting! [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about chantix. and find out how you can save money on your prescription. go to chantix.com to get terms and conditions. we keep talking about the future of jobs in this country, in the stem fields, that's science, technology, engineering and math. but when it comes to the quality of our math and science education, the u.s. ranks 52nd out of 139 nations. that's according to the world economic forum's global competitiveness report. the top of the list, singapore followed by belgium and finland.

before we trash the american education system, my next guest says not so fast. in this month's foreign policy magazine, ben writes, relax, america. chinese math whizzes and india engineers aren't stealing your kids' future. he joins us now. ben, in your piece, you show the "life" magazine cover from 1958, comparing a slacker american student with an overachieving russian student. we've been looking over our shoulder for an awful long time to the rest of the world, haven't we? >> you've had this sputnik moment since sputnik. >> not fair to compare the u.s. with finland or belgium. the u.s. education system is far bigger and much different? >> it's true. i mean, look, two things are true. we absolutely were kind of -- our performance is mediocre, needs to get better, no question. but if you look at a place like finland, you know, it's, of course, it's a small country, it's a really homogenous student population. one of the biggest problems we face in this country is a glaring and really shameful

achievement gap between white kids, asian kids on the one hand, black kids and latino kids on the other. huge gaps. we have a moral obligation to close that gap. what that means, if you look at white and asian kids they compare with some of the top-scoring places in the world, finland and canada. black kids and latino kids compare with turkey and bulgaria. we have to focus on closing those gaps and it makes it it tough to compare us with countries so different, so much more homogenous. >> that's where the education crisis is in your view. in this gap between these two extremes in this country and not on this overall american education system is terrible. let's go through some of the points in your article. tell me why you dispute the conventional wisdom that, quote, american kids are falling behind? you dispute that. that a lot of people say this. >> well, i guess i would say there's two issues. one is factual, one is philosophical. test results released a couple months ago, called piza, done by the oecd, we were basically in

the middle of the pack and there were lots of headlines and basically the sky is falling, it's a sputnik moment, but, in fact, what nobody reported, was that we had actually improved a bit since the last time both in science and math, reading stayed about level. on the factual side we're moving in the right direction. philosophically the big problem i see is that people tend to act as though somehow other countries gains are our loss. it's this notion of a zero sum game. and as long as we're not moving backwards i think that's really the wrong way to look at it. we should be happy if other countries are making improvements because we're all better off in a better educated world. >> one thing we see when we look at those rankings, on the surface, so many say the chinese students are eating america's lunch. you say only partly true. >> that's right. i mean, look, we do know that, of course, their education is something that's valued very, very highly in china. this idea of tiger moms has something to it. kids work very hard, families push them very hard. but having said that, a lot of the headlines out of the last

round of tests came out of shanghai which was participating for the first time in these international tests. they came out number one, head and shoulders above everybody else. shanghai is not china. shanghai is a town, it brings people from all over the country, the beneficiary of lots of government spending, there's whole other parts of china much more recall rural, less educated and haven't been tested. we don't know how the rest of the country would do and when you look at the u.s. figures, those are for a national cross-section of the entire country. >> another conventional wisdom, the u.s. no longer attracts the best and the brightest. you say that's just wrong. >> true. and again, it comes back to this zero sum game idea. it's true our market share of foreign students has gone down from 24% to 19% in the last ten years. however, we have 150,000 more foreign students. and the reason is, there's so many more students studying outside their home countries. it's gone from 2 million in 1990, or 2000, to 3.3 million

last year. so basically, the pie has gotten bigger. >> ben, a fantastic piece, relax america. i really appreciate you coming by. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. none of this changes, of course, we have to prepare our kids for college. over the next few weeks, high school seniors will make their final decisions where they will be spending the next four years of their lives and then comes the scramble to pay for it all. if you're taking out a bunch of loans, you to be smart about it. first, gone are the days of the five-year plan. tuition is up more than 400% since 1982. i'm not kidding. you just can't afford to stick around. also, you can't afford to switch majors three times. make a plan and stick to it. the key here, is to find out what you're good at. what you enjoy and what someone will pay you to do. and how much money should you borrow? a good rule of thumb is this, don't borrow more money than you expect to earn in your first year of working. that means we have to be saving more money for college too. you invest so much more than

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how many times have you heard that for your child to succeed in a new, more competitive world, he or she needs an education? first, a quality public school education. and then, a college degree. the right college degree. not from the right university necessarily, but in the right subject. too many american schools simply aren't preparing their kids and millions of parents are wondering, what can i do to get the most out of the education system for my kids?

lily is an elementary schoolteacher and vice president of the national education association. lily, how do you get the most out of school as a parent? >> you know, go up to the school's website, take a look at all of the programs. there's an awful lot that's being offered in public schools right now that nobody knows about. we don't have a big advertising budget. but we've got ap classes, international baca lorrate classes, foreign languages, science programs, afterschool music programs. there's an amazing array of things out there. a lot of it is on the chopping block. the more parents who are demanding that their kids have that very broad selection, that's going to help get their kids into those great programs and universities, the more the districts are going to build those programs. >> that's a good point. wendy walsh is a doctor of psychology and blogger for momlogic.com. you know we're getting mixed messages here. run away best-selling book called "dyinger mother" that

says we don't expect enough from our kids. a new film saying we push them too hard. listen to the clip from the film "race to nowhere". >> i put so much pressure on myself. >> i feel a lot of pressure to have perfect grades. >> definitely first comes from home. >> because my mother wasn't gra. she puts extra pressure on us. >> you need to have the best grades. >> so, wendy, do we expect too much or we don't expect enough? i don't know. >> the answer is, it depends on thedistinctly different kids. one gets straight as and it depends on the kid and how easy they're hurt by criticism and pressure and whether they excel through a little bit of pushing. >> i think both of you will agree, you can't put a kid in and school go on auto pilot as a

parent. knowing what's different with your kids and the weaknesses of your school and the strength ofs of your school. in the previous week failing schools and teachers and unions and a lot of oyou are wriyou ar us and say, as a parent, you need to step up. steve writes, as a parent, if either of my daughters isn't doing well in school, i see that as my responsibility. what must i do as their father to ensure their success in school? >> that is like music. that is total music and what was said before, it's a balance. you have to have a balance between a really caring teacher who knows his or her stuff and really caring parents who say, i'm your partner. that's when the kid wins. with all of the curriculum and books and things that might be going on. if you have that partnership and

a good balance between when do i push and when do i let go and let this kid fly on his own? then the kid really starts moving. >> so much of this depends on where you live. in an underperforming district, the best parent in the world might not be able to overcome it and that's kind of what the sad reality is here. if you're a parent who is trying to be that parent that is pushing, but you're pushing against a district that might be an underperformer, how do you navigate that? >> yes, but, i say that but my children ten years ago entered a school that was considered one of the worst ones in the state and one of the best ones thanks to a whole group of parents and brau brought in private money and corporate money and created an amazing school in our community. possible to turn around any school if you want to put ithe time in. separate from the school, if you are sending your kids to public school, like i am. take that money that you might have spent some of it on private school and give your children the gift of foreign travel and

give them the gift of foreign languages. this is what our children will need to compete. >> we'll talk about it for hours. lillian, wendy, thank you so much. virtually no chance that budget cuts aren't affecting your schools, if not yet in the classroom, maybe your local diner or mall. we'll explain the consequences of teacher layoffs, next. ♪ what do you see yourself doing after you do retire? client comes in and they have a box. and inside that box is their financial life. people wake up and realize. "i better start doing something." we open up that box. we organize it. and we make decisions. we really are here to help you. they look back and think "wow. i never thought i could do this." but we've actually done it. [ male announcer ] visit ameriprise.com and put a confident retirement more within reach.

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there's no way cuts to education aren't hitting your town. in pennsylvania, governor tom corbt is asking teachers to freeze their salaries for a year, saying it would save the state $400 million. if texas governor rick perry gets the balance budget his way more than 100,000 teachers could lose their jobs. that's one-third of all teachers in texas. california has allowed school systems to shorten the school year by five day s each of the last two years. tom is with "new york times" and rick newman "u.s. news and world

report." are we going to see classes get bigger and bigger and bigger as they cut teachers and, basically, more kids in every classroom. >> we will see much larger class sizes beginning this fall. the last two years as the recession has spread through school systems, there have been billions and billions of dollars that have come from the federal government that have been like a shock absorber for a lot of these cuts. >> right. it's wearing off. >> it's wearing off. >> when you are going to have bigger classes, maybe the teachers will do the same kind of routine. teaching in front of the kids will be the same, but what they do they lose? will they lose time grading papers outside, the kind of things they'll be assigned to do and they won't have time to grade all the big papers or big essays? >> presentation of new material in a class really doesn't change as you move from say 25 student to 30 students or above, but there's that point in the class day when the important thick is to make sure that students have

acch actually absorbed the material that's come in or to catch up with a student that's been absent in previous days and review that with them or in the evening, respond to e-mails or phone calls or, as you say, grade papers. that will become much more difficult. >> you think, rick, though, that we will not see the job cuts that are being advertised. this is the whole way the game is played, right? big proposals for cuts and then they're going to negotiate. >> the numbers we're hearing in the headlines are the worst possible scenario and probably not end up being that bad but a recurring theme for the next five to ten years is that the government will do less for you. we're going to have less government, but we can't afford the government we've had for the last 15 or 20 years. people will have to do more for themselves and i don't think that's armageddon. if people can take a little more burden upon themselves and maybe not so much the mentality that we're going to outsource our

kids' education to the school system completely, i think parent and kids will be just fine. >> civic involvement. >> any involvement with your kids. >> you can't be an auto pilot if you're putting your kid in the school. >> e-mailing teachers is an obvious one. a lot of schools have the lesson plans online and it makes it easier for parents to follow along. that's what it is going to take. >> the bottom line here, if you have all these cuts, rick. teachers spend money in the community. what is the ripple effect if the teachers aren't spending money in the community? >> everybody is not spending as much money in the community and these unions are still powerful and i think they'll protect the these type of jobs. for parents, no one size fits all program that is going to be imposed on all schools. >> and there shouldn't be. >> there shouldn't be. you need to find out what's happening at your school and what exactly is being cut. it may affect your kid in the certain way and nice to have things. like homework club or